The Town Hall Affair

From New York’s iconic theatre group comes a ‘timely and time-bending mixed-media piece’ (New York Times), channelling a raucous 1971 debate on women’s liberation that still reverberates today.

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Overview

In front of an audience of literary heavyweights gathered at New York’s Town Hall, pugnacious American novelist Norman Mailer squares up against a panel of prominent feminist advocates including Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston and Diana Trilling. The occasion is captured in the documentary Town Bloody Hall.

The Town Hall Affair, directed by Elizabeth LeCompte, features extended clips from the film and revisits that explosive night with Ari Fliakos, Greg Mehrten, Scott Shepherd, Maura Tierney and Kate Valk playing the real-life participants onstage. Layered with additional text and footage, The Town Hall Affair draws on experimental techniques to delve into the revolutionary fervour of 1970s’ feminist thinking, and lets us consider who we were then and who we have become.

Part of our 2018 Season, The Art of Change, which explores how artists respond to, reflect and can potentially effect change in the social and political landscape. Find out more here.

Age guidance 14+

22 June 2018
Post-show talk
Free to same-day ticket holders

Critic reviews

Strange, but gripping piece by legendary experimental theatre makers The Wooster Group

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The Stage

It is all very strange, but utterly, utterly engrossing, superbly and intensely performed

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WhatsOnStage

Germaine Greer and Norman Mailer brought vividly to life in a restaging of a debate on feminism

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The Independent

The whole thing feels not only smart but pays tribute to intellectual cut and thrust

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The Telegraph

The 1971 debate on feminism is deconstructed in an almost pitch-perfect Wooster Group production

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The Guardian

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